April 26, 2007Murray steps up as new CPIA chairmanOTTAWANova Scotia's Sean Murray has been named as the new chairman of the board for the Canadian Printing Industries Association. Following the resignation of former chairman Gary Evans, Murray was named as successor earlier today. Murray is president and CEO of Advocate Printing and Publishing in Pictou, N.S. as well as chairman of the media study group ComBase and past chairman of the Canadian Community Newspapers Association.

VistaPrint launches new program for bigger business
HAMILTON, BermudaWeb-to-print heavyweight VistaPrint is targeting large companies with dispersed workforces with its new VistaPrint Business Solutions program. Previously targeting small business almost exclusively, VistaPrint now allows employees of corporate clients access to its services through dedicated websites. From these sites, customers can order items such as business cards and stationery with designs consistent with their national corporate parents. Materials are printed at VistaPrint facilities in Windsor, Ont., and Venlo, Netherlands. In 2006, the company reported revenues of US$152.1 million.

New Gear  Colortech gets a flatbed
BURNABYOpened in 1988, Colortech has recently installed a Spyder 320-e digital flatbed printer. *Hoping to use the Spyder for short-runs and one-off press jobs, Colortech is shifting a portion of its sign-printing work away from its three screen presses and two roll-fed printers.
Above is Chris Fetterly, Colortech general manager, beside his new purchase

April 24, 2007Production Values  Quebec print drops again
OTTAWAStatistics Canada has released the latest data for domestic print shipments, updating to February 2007. Note that these numbers are not adjusted for inflation.

SHIPMENTS

2007

2006

Change

February

$785.40 million

$810.95 million

-3.1%

Year to date

$1.59 billion

$1.63 billion

-2.5%

Quebec’s shipments have been on a five-month slide, finishing February at $239.70 milliona 5.9% drop in YTD compared to 2006.

Ontario finance minister follows federal lead
TORONTOOntario manufacturers are set to receive a double-whammy tax break as the provincial government aims to mimic the federal budget. Print shop owners will be glad to hear that Queen’s Park is matching the incentives on machinery write-off times and capital cost allowance (CCA) changes put forth by federal finance minister Jim Flaherty. On provincial taxes, shop owners can look forward to:

an increase in the CCA rate to 10% on manufacturing buildings (up from 4%), and to 55% on computers (up from 45%)

further tax incentives for clean energy generation and usage

New Gear  National samples a new CTP
MONTREALNational Sample Card is a 50-year-old business with 500 employees in Canada, the United States and China. For the first CTP device installed in its Montreal facility, it purchased a Fujifilm Luxel T-9000II.
Left to right are Jerry LeClerc, Fujifilm Canada; Geoffrey Lopez, National’s prepress technician; Louise Gelinas, art department supervisor; and Francois Dupre, platemaker.

April 19, 2007Trade Watch  The Asia connection
OTTAWAIndustry Canada has released the most recent set of import and export totals for the print industry. The numbers are not adjusted for inflation.

EXPORTS

2007

2006

Change

February

$114.7 million

$131.3 million

-12.6%

Year to date

$239.5 million

$257.1 million

-6.8%

Though our exports continue to slowly decline, someone must have struck a deal in Singapore. The exports to that country exploded in February. The figures settled at $4.2 million. The highest it had been in the 24 months prior to that was $296,000.

IMPORTS

2007

2006

Change

February

$113.2 million

$85.1 million

33.0%

Year to date

$213.8 million

$174.6 million

22.5%

Chinese imports seem to be gradually declining with February’s totals closing at $13.8 million, the lowest total since April 2006.

Contact touches gold at IAPHC awards
VANCOUVERPrintCAN dropped the ball last week when it failed to report that Contact Printing also won an award at the IAPHC Best of the Best Awards in Las Vegas. The full-service North Vancouver shop took home the Best Use of Paper Award for its Dream Island of Birds booklet.
Contact was founded in 1981, has 18 full-time employees, and is run by David Brown and Bob Gibson, seen above with their award.

Quebecor dialing for dollars
MONTREALNow that the federal government has opened the door for more telecommunication providers, another of Canada’s communications giants has expressed interest. The government will be auctioning cell phone frequencies in 2008. Quebecor Inc. CEO Pierre Peladeau announced in Ottawa on Tuesday that his company is ready to invest heavily in the market. The news seems to have encouraged investorsthe company’s stock climbed 7.4% to close at $42.59 on Tuesday.

April 17, 2007A goliath deal in Quebec
MONTREALTwo relatively large print operations in La Belle Province have merged. Impression Paragraph, a commercial digital company in St. Laurent, and Imprimerie Goliath, a commercial shop that is part of Montreal’s Com2 Group, have come together. They will form a 150-employee operation with five facilities and nearly $16 million in annual sales. Goliath will be re-branded as Impression Paragraph, but the combined entity will be a part of the Com2 group of companies, which also operates a fulfillment service called XNex and a graphic design house called com2Media.

Alain David, Com2 president and newly named executive vice president of Impression Paragraph, says the combined resources of the two companies will allow them to reach new print markets, specifically the 40” multi-colour market. Both companies had strong sales in 2006especially Com2, which had a 12.5% increase in revenue.

PIXI Awards now truly international
BOSTONStarting this year, participants in the Printing Innovation with Xerox Imaging (PIXI) Awards will compete on a truly international stage. The awards are doing away with separate European and American competitions, and will hold one globe-spanning contest in 2007. Entrants may begin submitting on April 23, and the deadline is June 22. Historically, Canadian printers do well at the PIXIs. Last year alone saw four shops on the podium. Pareto Corporation of Pickering, Ont., CJ Digital Inc. in Toronto, Hume Imaging of Scarborough, Ont, and Bassett Direct of Markham, Ont., all had top-three finishes, beating out competitors from across North and South America.

New Gear  Press debuts in Canada at Web Offset Publications
PICKERING, Ont.As one of the foundation blocks of Ironstone Media, Web Offset Publications ends up printing a lot of magazines and journalsapproximately 150 of them. The shop has just installed Canada’s first Mitsubishi Diamond 16 Max-M in its 24-hour-a-day pressroom. The 32”, five-unit press will run alongside various sheetfed and heatset web presses.
Tending the Diamond 16 Max-M is Web Offset Publications press operator Bill Little.

April 12, 2007Mailers offered spending data through Canada Post
OTTAWAPrinters who have delved into the mailing business will want to take heed of a new service that will allow for better-targeted direct mailings. Canada Post’s GeoPost Plus service allows customers that send unaddressed admail to target households or businesses by demographic groupings (e.g. postal code, income, age, family status). Now GeoPost provides information on Canadian consumer spending as well. According to its website, Canada Post tracks spending on 380 consumer items “from shelter and appliances to pet food and sporting events.” So a mailer looking to target hockey season ticket holders will be able to see mail routes with high concentrations of those consumers. Canada Post culls its data from Statistics Canada and a third-party service called PSYTE Canada Advantage, which is provided by New York-based information broker MapInfo.

C.J. Graphics spruces up online
TORONTOAfter having the same basic web design since 2001, C.J. Graphics decided it was time for a facelift. The company’s new website design went live this week with a cleaner menu system, a smaller display space, animated images, and some introductory music to welcome online visitors.

New Gear  Trade printer Sotek gets new workflow
OTTAWAFamily-run trade printer Sotek Graphics, which has approximately 12 employees, recently installed the Agfa SherpaProof 44 proofing system along with the ApogeeX commercial workflow. These new products will power the shop’s Galileo CTP device and its Avantra 44 imagesetter. Left to right are Richard Juneau from Agfa, and Mike Armstrong, a manager at Sotek Graphics.

April 10, 2007Printer leads Italian community to huge charitable donation
TORONTOThe Art Gallery of Ontario has received a $10 million donation from prominent Italian families thanks to the efforts of a big print-industry player. Tony Gagliano, CEO of St. Joseph Communications, spearheaded a donation drive at the behest of his father, Gaetano, who created St. Joseph in 1956 after emigrating from Italy. The AGO will honour the donations by naming its new sculpture gallery Galleria Italia.

One more for Met
VANCOUVERMetropolitan Fine Printers has taken home the Kodak Best Stochastic Printing Award for the second time in as many years. Metropolitan won for its Woodward’s Presentation Folder and Magazine, a 24-page project produced using 10 micron Kodak Staccato screening that won a Benny in 2006. The Kodak award was given at the IAPHC International Gallery Best of the Best Awards in Las Vegas earlier this year.

US places countervailing duties on Chinese paper imports
WASHINGTONAfter being charged with dumping under-priced paper into the U.S. market, China is now subject to duties on coated freesheet paper it exports to the United States. So far, it appears that no brands available in Canada are subject to these duties or the price hikes that would likely follow such action. Some paper vendors, such as Domtar, do manufacture some of their brands in China and import them through U.S. ports for North American distribution. At the outset, it appears none of those brands fit into the trade categories targeted by the duties. The policy is to be reviewed in early June 2007.

April 5, 2007Davis + Henderson year end shows improvement
TORONTOShowing improvement over the 2005 fiscal year, cheque printer Davis + Henderson Income Fund has released its Q4 and year end financials. 2006 ended with the fund reporting a 17.1% increase in revenue and a 9.5% increase in profit compared to 2005. That translates to $66.5 million in profit on $323.7 million in sales. This is an improvement over a rather flat showing in 2005 when reduced cheque volumes impacted the bottom line. But this year Bob Cronin, the fund’s CEO, said in a press release that sales figures were helped by “stronger than expected cheque order volumes.”

New name and format for CPIA conference
OTTAWAThe Canadian Printing Industries Association has renamed its annual conference, changing it from Print Canada to Strategy 07. It is set to be held at the Westin Bristol Place Hotel in Toronto. It runs from Tuesday, November 6 to Thursday, November 8the days leading up to Graphics Canada, to which participants will be given access when Strategy 07 ends.

April 3, 2007PLM shows increased profit on increased sales
MARKHAM, Ont.The PLM Group, one of Canada’s largest commercial print operations, released its year-end figures last week. The company showed growth over its last fiscal year, reporting $4.2 million in profit on $125.5 million in consolidated sales in 2006. The company’s overall sales, which are up 7.1%, include commercial and large-format printing along with pre-media services. The increased profit is an improvement over the $0.9 million loss reported in 2005. PLM CEO Barry Pike says the upswing is due to increased print sales and improved market share.